The Waste Wise Blog

The potential for sustainability is nearly limitless and is a great investment into the future for generations. Many corporations, colleges and cities, and more have been moving toward this goal for years.

Here in the United States, each school faces its own set of issues when it comes to operating as smoothly and effectively as possible. While some problems are localized and contextual, others are universal.

Sometimes it can feel like a burden to keep up sustainable practices. Sometimes this involves buying those special products, making an extra trip to the store or the recycling center, or even having to put out more money to buy something online and pay for shipping.

One of the potential solutions to plastic pollution, which threatens to choke the world's landfills and oceans, is to find a way to process plastic before it becomes a problem. According to Earth Island Journal, Federica Bertocchini, a developmental biologist who works at the Institute of Biomedicine and Biotechnology of Cantabria in Spain, may have stumbled upon a solution back in 2012.

Billions of plastics are sent to the landfills each year, where they can sit for hundreds of years without degrading. Reducing the amount of plastics used in our homes can significantly improve environmental health - both locally and globally.

The problem of what to do about trash is vexing, whether one is on Earth or in space. On the International Space Station, astronauts use a trash compactor to reduce the volume of its garbage and then shoot it into the atmosphere, where it burns up.

According to the USDA, between 30-40% of food is wasted every year in the United States, leading to over 100 billion pounds of food waste every year. This number may seem intimidating, but even small changes in how we consume and dispose of food can lead to significant impacts on the reduction of food waste.

As younger generations hit the workforce, more and more young people are looking toward company culture and values as deciding factors in their job search. One key factor? A company's sustainability, both financial and environmental.